It's been over two decades since Gladiator fans first stepped into the cinematic colosseum helmed by Ridley Scott and now we're getting an official look at the director's new story in the same universe . On Monday, Vanity Fair shared several first-look images from Scott’s long-awaited Gladiator II , which welcomes a host of famous faces including Paul Mescal , Pedro Pascal , Denzel Washington , Connie Nielsen, Joseph Quinn , Fred Hechinger and more. Gladiator II stars Mescal as Lucius Verus, the nephew of former Emperor Commodus, the patricidal traitor-turned-emperor played by Joaquin Phoenix in the first film.
Per Vanity Fair , his mother, Lucilla (Nielsen), sent him away to grow up in Numidia, a region in the northern coast of Africa, where he starts his own family and resents his mother and the empire. When the Roman army (led by Pascal's general Marcus Acacius) attacks, Lucius' new home is destroyed and he's captured and brought back to Rome to be a gladiator. The Rome he returns to is corrupt and cruel, led by two "sadistic" co-Emperors (Hechinger and Quinn), and Lucius finds his mother is involved with the very general who just destroyed his way of life in Numidia.
Washington stars as a former slave-turned-wealthy arms dealer named Macrinus, Derek Jacobi as Senator Gracchus, Tim McInnerny as Thraex, and Alexander Karim as Ravi, alongside Lior Raz, Peter Mensah, Matt Lucas, May Calamawy and more. Pascal's general is said to have trained as a junior officer under Russel.